Shootings expose flaws in mental health system

While a small number of people with mental illness commit acts of violence, the difficulty of securing treatment and ensuring it is successful — and the catastrophic consequences of failure — are common threads that often link such outbursts.

But just getting patients diagnosed or enrolled in treatment often isn't enough. Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho was ordered into outpatient treatment before he killed 32 people in 2007.

This summer, prosecutors say, James Holmes killed 12 people at a midnight premiere of a new Batman movie in Colorado. His attorneys say he had an undisclosed mental illness, and his psychiatrist tried to report him to a campus behavioral and security committee.

Experts say it can take years before patients agree to stick with a prescribed treatment. Elyn Saks, a law professor at the University of Southern California, has schizophrenia and, without medication, starts to believe she can kill hundreds of thousands of people with her thoughts. Until the mid-1990s, when she was in her 40s, Saks tried periodically to skip her drugs.

"I felt so ashamed," said Saks, a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" winner for her contributions to mental health law. "It's an internalized stigma. I wanted to be whole, I wanted to be well. Each time I tried to get off medication, I did it with great gusto and failed miserably." Now, she takes her pills. "Frankly, I'm sorry I wasn't smarter sooner."

Earley initially didn't stick with treatment after his father lied to get him into a hospital. He became violent — he was shot with a Taser by a police officer at one point — and was hospitalized five times before he realized he couldn't live without his medication.

"I know I have a mental illness and if I leave it untreated it will destroy me," said Earley, who now works full time as a peer counselor in Fairfax County, Va., helping others with severe mental illnesses. With treatment, he said, "I have my own apartment, a car ... I'm able to do things with friends and family. I have a job I can go to that gives me pride."

Popular Comments

These high-profile cases make the news because they involve mainstream people.
When you have a hostage situation in Cottonwood Heights or a bomber on the Trax
platform, you take notice.But violence is common among the homeless in the
slum
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7:49 a.m. Oct. 2, 2012

Top comment

John C. C.

Payson, UT

President Kennedy's stated purpose when he proposed moving the mentally ill
out of federal institutions was that they would go to neighborhood treatment
centers where they would be treated more humanely. During the next 15 years or
so, his
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11:01 a.m. Oct. 2, 2012

Top comment

Say No to BO

Mapleton, UT

Kennedy's plan was a rush job. There weren't community mental health
centers, only a few plans. But the states were glad to empty the mental
hospitals and turn over the financial liability for them. It is the very
definition of
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